12 comments:

My initial impulse is that Dr. Hellwig's assertion that the current problems ultimately are of financial "system design" seem true. However his call for a re-evaluation of the "conceptual foundations of banking regulation and suprvision" is depressing. I am only left with more questions, like, what is the welfare criterion for implementing a global financial watchdog?

Hellwig needs a bigger soapbox. The real tragedy is that the opportunity cost of debating stimulus packages in legislatures is the foregone discussion about financial sector regulation.This was a nice post.

I liked his paper. A good mix of theoretical analysis, history, and synthesis (putting all the bits together). And not shrill. But I am curious as to why you thought it so very different from other stuff out there?

Pani Pani: try not to get too discouraged. See if this helps; he expands on his views in this article: http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2008_43online.pdf

Nick: are you suggesting that a good mix of theoretical analysis, history, synthethis, sans shrill...is par for the course out there? Maybe I'm reading the wrong stuff! (Actually, I am in Paris at the moment, stuffing myself with fresh baguettes...not really reading much at all).

David, I had the same reflection as Nick. You need to read more liberal writers and economists for what you are looking for.

Congratulations for the fellowship. Well deserved.

Now that the fellowship is in the bag, how about sticking those sharp claws of yours into our economist-trained Prime Minister Stephan Harper? I'm dead sure that the Bank of Canada would love you to do a critical review of Harper versus Dodge, for example.

Former BoC governor Dodge recently and emphatically disagreed with the rosy outlooks of both Harper and successor Carney. Dodge incidentally informed us that the late-boom GST tax cuts put the federal government in a position of running a structural deficit. (I didn't know that.)

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